Abstract This article examines how socio‐political constructions of rental markets create housing vulnerabilities for subaltern renters. Going beyond the typical focus on occupancy claims in slums, I study rent and racialization in Indian cities through the experiences of Northeastern migrant women living in Bengaluru. Through ethnographic research, I find that their racialization and hyper‐sexualization subjects them to harassment, restrictions and intrusions perpetuated by landlords and neighbours. I argue that this phenomenon is grounded in the informal nature of rental markets, both in terms of regulatory frameworks and built form, that have produced landlord‐tenant relationships grounded in existing social relations. While this benefits tenants who share social traits with landlords, marginalized populations are subjected to discriminatory rental environments. Additionally, the socio‐political empowerment of hegemonic groups, as property owners and as members of dominant communities, authorizes the perpetuation of violence in housing units occupied by Northeastern migrant women. Under these circumstances, I find that they are denied a sense of dignity, safety and privacy in their everyday living spaces; this form of housing violence that occurs without the displacement of residents is what I call rental unfreedoms . Broadly, the article opens up rental living spaces as new sites of inquiry on subaltern housing subjectivities.
Meghna Mohandas (Mon,) studied this question.